After gaining 6 months of experience and some previous volunteering experience of University days, I managed to secure 2nd job in my career. This was certainly step up and another major learning curve. I also had PR with me and there was nothing to be worried about in getting a job.
I was super excited about this job and it was client facing role. I was excited to learn and deal with client requirements on daily basis. Like before I thought first week will be more around orientation, meet and greet. I walked in on my first day, my boss is busy in a meeting and I was made to sit near my supposedly work area for first hour. I sort of thought it’s not a professional way but let’s see.
After a while my boss arrived and I was introduced to other team members and gradually I came to know there are lots of teams doing same work but with different clients. There were 2 members in my team and my boss. As I came back to my desk, I came to know that there was no setup in place for me. I found this unprofessional too but thought maybe it’s a big company that’s why and I don’t know their procedures. After spending an hour here and there, I found IT help desk’s phone number and asked them to set me up, surprise; there was no record of me in their system, so went back to payroll, then to HR and back to my boss for authorization. Overall I spent my first day in setting my own email up.
Second day, it was back to same routine, computer wasn’t setup with my username, so once again did the same round of people to set it up. After half day, I could login to computer but still didn’t have email setup. After all this spoke to my boss and was suggested to go through folders and study what’s involved with client. Spent my first week in getting my way around how things were done with little support or communication from boss. The colleague in my team didn’t speak or get involved but just managed own work and that’s all. This person was of little help too. I didn’t get good feeling or vibe the way things were going but just thought that it was large work environment that’s making me uneasy. As it progressed into second week, I met the client and understood little bit about my responsibility and timelines but still not much of clarity in what’s involved and what I am supposed to do on daily basis. I also spoke to other teams and got to know that I was the fourth person in this position in less than 6 months as others didn’t turn up after their first week. This made me nervous and I thought there must be something fishy that I didn’t get to see before.
As it happens my boss is usually busy in meetings or drinks with clients and there is no one to support, guide or show anything. I was expected to work my way out from nothing. This was as ridiculous as it sounds. The colleague was very non cooperative kind of person. Also when I used to step out of office on lunch, boss started telling me that I should eat my lunch on desk and work but never guided on what I should be working on. When I left office on normal finishing hours, I was told to stay back until at-least 7 and do work but again what work none knows. I did stay back 2 weeks only to see boss is enjoying drinks in the name of meeting and tells me there is lot of work to be completed. This person never sends me email or asked me what needs to be done but there is work to be done. Gradually stress was building up about what do I need to do, I asked this to my boss to but with no clear response.
Finally in third week I was shown few things I needed to work on, which was backlog due to absence in this position but again didn’t have access to client’s files. So, repeated initial steps again to get the access. I was getting little frustrated but tried to keep my cool. I was thinking lot of these things should have been setup when company recruited me for this position; they still had 4 weeks to get things sorted before I started. The colleague was still non co-operative, didn’t know the exact reason for this but overall feedback from other teams was this person was partly the cause of previous people not staying in this position.
As I came close to month in this position, I still didn’t have any clear idea on what we do for the client and what my role was about. I thought, I need to be productive in this job and I will start asking questions or hassling people until I get clear picture. Boss is pushing for deadlines of client and here I am having no idea of what we report to client. I was getting stressed and worried about every little thing.
It was a day during the week when as usual boss was roaming around no one knows where and I was still trying to figure things out and out of curiosity asked question to my colleague. This person got upset and rudely replied I am not helping you. I replied back asking why not and the reply was I won’t, you figure it out yourself. I said fine but there is no need to be rude about it. This person then got upset and said I will complain to the boss. I said ok do whatever you can, I’ll also see what you can do. This was my breaking point; I brought this issue so loudly with the boss in front of all the teams, which everyone got nervous about it. Immediately meeting was called in boardroom, they tried to diffuse the situation but I was at my boiling point and let go all the anger and frustration at both of them. Boss started to threaten me with legal implications of my position and that they can fire me too. On this argument I got even more irritated and told them, I don’t need your threats, harassments and bullying, I can take legal action against you too but don’t want to. I resign right now and won’t do any work and won’t give you any notice, go and meet your deadlines by yourself. Once again there was threat on legal action telling me I have been paid and there might be some money I need to refund. I said go work it out with your HR and payroll, give me a summary and I’ll refund the balance but don’t care about your legal actions and if you do take one, rest assured I’ll be taking one too and that will be for workplace harassment and bullying. After all this I handed over my security cards and stormed out of office and told them do whatever you like but I am not coming back to work.
This was by far one of the worst workplace experiences I had in my life. May be I was new and too young to this situation but even after this incident, I have worked in so many other places but never seen such behaviour or work environment.
I abruptly quit this work, may be this was due to age and no family commitments. But still don’t regret doing that. I just was sick of that uneasy work environment, rude and non-co-operative behaviour and forcefully making me sit in lunch break for which I don’t get paid and extended stay backs for which once again I don’t get paid for. This still wouldn’t have been an issue had they been polite, planned, organised and been cooperative all along. I have certainly learnt and become more mature to handle these situations in a better way now.
What I did next was even more unbelievable…
khatti meethi yaadein 